ANAHEIM, Calif. -- To a full room of EDA professionals, Gartner Dataquest''s chief analyst for design and engineering acknowledged tools EDA tools are under-priced, but the price wars between tool providers has limited growth.

With the firm predicting EDA tool revenue to reach $7.465 billion by 2009, chief EDA analyst Gary Smith explained the way to reach that figure from the nearly $4 billion predicted for this year, is to have the tools ready when the market needs them.

For the next generation of 65nm process technology that means the tools need to be on the market now if those designs are to hit manufacturing when the ITRS roadmap predicts will be 2007.

Furthermore, Gartner’s Daya Nadamuni explained the long-awaited electronic system level (ESL) tools, formerly called hardware/software co-design, may be the savior for the EDA industry because of the fact that at 90nm, there are several million usable gates. Also, design productivity, power and programmability issues demand that software is an increasing important part of the system design.

Ultimately, design at this level would allow concurrent hardware and software design whereas today, these are typically done separately to disastrous results, she explained.

Currently, Gartner has found that in searching for an ESL methodology; more than one type exists, driven by the type of design and the design process. Also, most of the methodologies are manual with little islands of automation.

Connecting those islands will drive EDA growth, Nadamuni concluded.

Gartner''s
EDAMarket
Forecast*

2001	$3.724
2002	$3.937
2003	$3.906
2004	$3.939
2005	$3.970
2006	$4.310
2007	$5.265
2008	$6.320
2009	$7.465

*in billions of U.S. dollars

Source: Gartner Dataquest